I just drove away….

THE STORY

In November 2024, a surgeon removed my heart and replaced it with someone else’s. I had spent 22 years managing congestive heart failure — then it wasn’t enough. On the other side of the OR, I found that surviving wasn’t the same as living. After 35 years together, the marriage ended. So I pointed myself at the open road and started figuring out what comes next—and writing about all of it along the way.

THE ROAD

Where I’ve been and what I found there.

THE GEAR

What works, what doesn’t, what I’d buy again.

THE LIFE

Rebuilding from scratch at 57, disabled, alone on the road.

THE RECKONING

What a heart transplant and the end of a 35-year relationship teach you about starting over.

LATEST POSTS

  • Not the Miles
    Big Bone Lick State Park sits in northern Kentucky, named for the mammoth and mastodon bones early settlers pulled out of the salt springs there. I’d been camped since Friday. Sunday morning I went out for a walk and came across a van that stopped me cold—a 1974 Volkswagen Custom Westfalia, restored down to the chrome, pop-top raised, curtains pulled… Read more: Not the Miles
  • Still Here
    I’m sitting at a picnic table right now, and I still don’t quite believe how quiet it is. That’s not a metaphor. I mean it literally—I keep pausing to listen for something, some hum or rumble that isn’t there, the way your tongue keeps finding the socket where a tooth used to be. There’s nothing to find. A few hundred… Read more: Still Here
  • Yeah So?
    Something just occurred to me while I was sitting here writing today. I could get in my car right now and drive to the Smokies. Today. This afternoon. There is nothing and no one stopping me from doing exactly that. And my reaction—the one I was not expecting—was: yeah, so? As in: obviously. Of course I could. Why wouldn’t I? That surprised… Read more: Yeah So?

James Nerlinger

I’m a writer, rogue scholar, and heart transplant recipient currently car camping in a Jeep Renegade — the first step toward full-time RV life.

I spent 22 years with congestive heart failure before receiving a donor heart in November 2024. After that, a 35-year relationship ended. So did my fixed address. Rogue Wayfarer is where I write about all of it — the gear, the places, the people I meet along the way, and the slow work of rebuilding a life you didn’t plan for.

Contact

Thoughts? Questions? Fellow wayfarers?

jnj@roguewayfarer.com

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